The genius of Shakespeare is our familiar thought and ready expression when we study him, and when we characterize him. Nevertheless, simple and intelligible as is the word, it is extremely difficult to analyze or to define it. Yet everything that is great and beautiful in his writings seems to require an explanation of the cause to which it owes its origin.
One great characteristic of genius, easily and universally admitted, is, that it is a gift, and not an acquisition. It belongs inherently to the person possessing it; it cannot be transmitted by heritage; it cannot be infused by parental affection; it cannot be bestowed by earliest care; neither can it be communicated by the most finished [{557}] culture or the most studied education. It must be congenital, or rather inborn to its possessor. It is as much a living, a natural power, as is reason to every man. As surely as the very first germ of the plant contains in itself the faculty of one day evolving from itself leaves, flowers, and fruit, so does genius hold, however hidden, however unseen, the power to open, to bring forth, and to mature what other men cannot do, but what to it is instinctive and almost spontaneous. It may begin to manifest itself with the very dawn of reason; it may remain asleep for years, till a spark, perhaps accidentally, kindles up into a sudden and irrepressible splendor that unseen intellectual fuel which has been almost unknown to its unambitious owner.
In our own minds we easily distinguish between the highest abilities or the most rare attainments, when the fruit of education and of application, and what we habitually distinguish as the manifestation of genius. But still we do not find it so easy to reduce to words this mental distinction; the one, after all, however gracefully and however brightly, walks upon the earth, adorning it by the good or fair things which it scatters on its way; the other has wings, and flies above the surface—it is like the aurora of Homer or of Thorwaldsen, which, as it flies above the plane of mortal actions, sheds down its flowers along its brilliant path upon those worthy to gaze upward toward it. We connect in our minds with genius the ideas of flashing splendor and eccentric movement. It is an intellectual meteor, the laws of which cannot be defined or reduced to any given theory. We regard it with a certain awe, and leave it to soar or to droop, to shine or disappear, to dash irregularly first in one direction and then in another; no one dare curb it or direct it; but all feel sure that its course, however inexplicable, is subject to higher and controlling rule. But in order to define more closely what we in reality understand by genius, it may be well to consider its action in divided and more restricted spheres of activity. For although we habitually attribute this singular quality to many, and often but on light grounds, it is seldom that we do so seriously and deliberately without some qualifying epithet. We speak of a military genius, of a mechanical genius, of a poetical genius, of a musical genius, or of an artistic genius. All these expressions contain a restrictive clause. We do not understand when we use them that the person to whom they were attributed possessed any power beyond the limits of a particular sphere. We do not mean by the use of the word genius that the soldier knew anything of poetry, or the printer of mechanism. We understand that each in his own profession or stage of excellence possessed a complete elevation over the bulk of those who followed the same pursuits; a superiority so visible, so acknowledged, and so clearly individual, that no one else considered it inferiority, still less felt shame at not being able to rise to the same level. They gather round them acknowledged disciples and admirers, who rather glory to have been guided by their teaching, and formed on their example.
And in what consisted that complete though limited excellence? If I might venture to express a judgment, I would say that genius in these different courses of science or art may be defined a natural sympathy with all that relates to each of them, with the power of giving full and certain execution to the mental conception. The military genius is one who, either untrained by studious preparation, or else starting out of the lines in which many were ranged level with himself, seizes the staff of command, and receives the homage of comrades and superiors. While others have been plodding through the long drill of theory and of practice, he is found to have discovered a new system of the science, bold, irregular, but successful. But to possess this genius, there must be a universal sympathy with all that relates [{558}] to its own peculiar province. The military genius of which we are speaking must embrace or acquire that which relates to the soldier's life and duty, from the dress of a single soldier, from his duties in the sentry-box, or on the picquet, to the practice of the regiment and the evolutions of a field-day; from the complete command of tens of thousands on the battle-field, with an eagle's eye and a lion's heart, to the scientific planning, on the chessboard of an empire, of the campaign, which he meditates, move by move and check by check, till the final victory is crowned in the capital city. He who has not given proof of his being equal to all this, has not made good his claim to military genius. But such a one will find, wherever he puts his hand, generals and marshals, each able to command a host, or to take his place in his roughest of enterprises.
I need not pass through other forms of genius to reach similar results; Stephenson, from the labor of the mine, creating that system of mechanical motion, which may be said to have subdued the world, and bound the earth in iron links; Mozart giving concerts at the age of seven that astonished gray-headed musicians; Raphael, before the ordinary age of finished pupilage, master of every known detail in art of oil or fresco, drawing, expression, and grand composition; Giotto, caught in the field as a young shepherd by Cimabue, drawing his sheep upon a stone, and soon becoming the master of modern art. [Footnote 107] These and many others repeat to us what I have said of the military genius—an inborn capacity, comprehensive and complete, with the power of fully carrying out the suggestions of mind. Had there been a single portion of their pursuits in which they did not excel, if the result of their work had not exhibited the happy union and concord of the many qualities requisite for its perfection, they never would have attained the attribution of genius.
[Footnote 107: The early manifestation of artistic power is so frequent and well known, that it would be superfluous to enumerate other instances. The expression "anch' io son pittore" is become proverbial. One of the Carracci, on being translated from an inferior profession to the family studio, was found at once to possess the pictorial skill of his race. At the present, Mintropp at Düsseldorf, and Ackermann at Berlin, are both instances of very high artists, the one in drawing, the other in sculpture, both originally shepherds.]
If this sympathy with one branch of higher pursuits passes beyond it and associates with it a similar facility of acquisition and execution in some other and distinct art or science, it is clear that the claim to genius is higher and more extensive. Raphael was before the world a painter, but he could scarcely have been so without embracing every other department of art. Before the science of perspective was matured or popularly known, when, in consequence, defects are to be found in the disposition of figures, and in the adjustment of aerial distances, [Footnote 108] his architecture shows an instinctive familiarity with its rules and proportions; a proof that he possessed an architectural eye. And consequently the one statue which he is supposed to have carved, and the one palace which he is said to have built, show how easily he could have undertaken and executed beautiful works in either of those two classes of art. In Orcagna and Michelangelo we have the three branches of art supremely united; and the second of these adds poetry and literature to his artistic excellence. In like manner, Leonardo has left proof of most varied and accurate mechanical as well as literary genius.
[Footnote 108: See Mr. Lloyd's article on "Raphael's School of Athens," in Mr. Woodward's Fine Art Quarterly Review, January, 1864, p. 67.]
It is evident, however, that while a genius has its point of concentration, every remove from this, though wider, will be fainter and less complete. We may describe it as Shakespeare himself describes glory, and say:
"Genius is like a circle in the water,
Which never ceaseth to enlarge itself,
Till, by broad spreading, it disperse to naught."
("Henry VI.," act i., scene 3.)